WASHINGTON, D.C. (4/30/2025) – As a federal court considers remedies to the Google Search case, it has become clear that the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) remedy proposals go far beyond the court’s decision and threaten to harm consumers, undercut basic privacy and security protections, undermine competition, and chill American innovation.
These proposals come despite warnings from leading legal analysts and tech industry experts who cautioned that heavy-handed remedies would harm American workers and consumers and undercut the United States’ competitive edge on the global stage.
Concerningly, the remedies recommended by the DOJ go far beyond the court’s ruling. As the remedy trial moves into its second week, these remedies continue to put the consumer the DOJ claims to protect in jeopardy and ironically threaten to harm competition and innovation.
Below are additional comments from experts on the risks posed by the government’s proposed remedies in the Google Search case:
Wall Street Journal Editorial Board:
The government wants to force Google to divest its Chrome browser to degrade its ability to target ads. This would hurt advertisers while helping other companies that serve up ads such as Amazon and Meta…DOJ says the judge should ban Google from paying for default placement on browsers and devices. Even Mozilla, a browser competitor to Google’s Chrome, said the government’s ‘misguided plans…’ would primarily benefit Big Tech companies like Microsoft… DOJ wants to limit how Google integrates AI into its products, including to enhance its search engine. Call it government-planned obsolescence. If Google can’t innovate, it will lose ground to competitors…How does strangling a company help competition?
Former OMB Economic Policy Director Vance Ginn:
“DOJ’s breakup plan won’t just hurt Google—it’ll hurt…Chrome, YouTube, Search, and more. How is that good for consumers or innovation?“
“These undermine long-established antitrust principles in a way that hurts consumers, U.S. economic interests, and global American technological leadership. DOJ’s remedies would create massive privacy and cybersecurity exposure to users by forcing Google to share users’ search data with its competitors. And the government would punish Google for building a successful product that people actually like by making it harder for users to access Google Search and kneecapping Google’s ability to continue to innovate and improve Search. We hope the court will take these broader implications of the proposed remedies into consideration when crafting its decision.”
“Antitrust enforcement should focus on demonstrable consumer harm and the consumer welfare standard—not the size or success of a company. Punitive actions against companies for their performance, absent clear evidence of consumer detriment, set a concerning precedent that will deter future innovation and investment in America.”
“These regulatory interventions threaten to destabilize the competitive landscape we have worked diligently to foster, creating an environment where innovation is penalized, not rewarded. Consumers will ultimately bear the cost of this regulatory overreach through higher prices and reduced service quality. The current ecosystem, which has enabled unprecedented technological advancement, stands to be compromised by these regulatory interventions.”
Trevor Wagener, CCIA Chief Economist published an article during the first week of the remedy trial warning that heavy-handed remedies to the case, like the DOJ’s proposal to require Google to spin off Chrome, share web query data, or pull back from search engine distribution contracts, risk “worse stock market performance, increased prices for high-salience goods and services, and damaged U.S. competitiveness in the global artificial intelligence (AI) race with China.”
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